


DBH: Illuminate- Reassigned

by grayorca15, TheShadowsmiths, YearwalktheWorld



Series: DBH: Illuminate [8]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, DBHIlluminate, Drama, Friendship, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 05:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19078417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayorca15/pseuds/grayorca15, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShadowsmiths/pseuds/TheShadowsmiths, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YearwalktheWorld/pseuds/YearwalktheWorld
Summary: A RAID redundancy error causes Connor’s consciousness to split and download into a second iteration of himself, resulting in one Connor who is more prone to acting like a machine, and one who is deviant.





	DBH: Illuminate- Reassigned

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter art by -- [Optcldrift](https://www.instagram.com/optcldrift/)
> 
> \---
> 
> If you like our work, please consider [[ joining our discord ]](https://discord.gg/AfteugU) for a catalogue of character bios and a glossary of terms, or dropping by [[ Detroit: New ERA ]](https://discord.gg/ec69ttR)'s Discord and the [[ Detroit: Become Human Official Amino ]](https://aminoapps.com/c/detroitbecomhumanofficial/page/user/dbh-illuminate/Bvad_jPsbfozYpNPN1j2aeQNde3eEED2RZ) to let the MODs know! It would really help us out!

****

**November 11th, 2038 - 11:11 PM**

Amanda didn’t typically commandeer them for any little inconsequential reason. It wasn’t what she was designed for. On a good day she needn’t direct them at all- on a good week they went without needing any updates. In almost nine months of roving investigative work, RK800 #313 248 317 -50 knew precisely how many times he had been summoned to the garden without warning.

_None._

Stranger yet was the shift in weather. In his experience, the sun’s intensity had never waned, nor strengthened. The water of the pond remained clear, the silt below smooth and undisturbed. A gentle breeze always blew, rustling the trees around them no more violently than a tickling brush. Today he opened his eyes to a springtime scene of overcast skies, the occasional whitecap breaking its way across the choppy pond, and wilting pink blossoms.  
The shed petals twirling to the ground in small clusters were instant cause for concern. The fact he was there looking at these changes alone -without his partners- was even more alarming.

Every one of their case debriefs to date had always been conducted as a group, never individually. It was that way for a reason. Amanda knew what each of them excelled in, as much as she knew what their weaknesses were, and it was always more constructive to go around the ring, check and double check and triply verify they were on the same page, pointed toward the same goal.  
Eccentric as Dennis and Nicholas may have seemed to the uninitiated layman, they served their function in the trio. A multitude of perspectives was always more conducive to considering a problem from all angles. To be in the garden without them now, never mind the arbitrary means by which he had been brought there, was as strange as the first afternoon -50 had been directed to meet them, at least in his experience. Neatly collating and setting it aside, he took the nearest footpath toward the waypoint his HUD had been provided. He had no reason to disobey the unspoken order, after all.

A little flock of pearl-white doves were the garden’s only other inhabitants at present. Behind the drooping branches of a weeping willow he found his handler tending to three of them. The birds stirred, perched side by side upon a chest-high branch, with a fourth poised upon her wrist. Amanda scant glanced up from tracing her fingertips across its back, the soft murmur of cooing seemed to taper off as -50 trailed to a stop at the edge of the path. Quashing whatever curious prickles of nervousness this summons brought forth, he folded his hands behind his back, where she couldn’t see any errant, unexplainable tremors. He could pretend this was business as usual, no reason to be concerned. The empty spaces behind his shoulders weren’t that disquieting.

“Hello, Amanda.”

The bird on her wrist froze at the new voice, then resumed nuzzling against her fingertips. From the side, it looked as if Amanda spared it a languid smile before turning to address their visitor. Her shawl was a vibrant mix of blue-green fractals today.

“Connor. A pleasure to see you, as ever. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything too pressing.”

Nothing any more exciting than what usually happened in Dayton, Ohio. A few weeks conferring with its various police precincts had only revealed the expected assortment of open, dead-in-the-water cases. Pursuing deviants wasn’t unlike trying to trace exploded fireworks - the inceptual event typically ended in the suspect’s abrupt disappearance. If it was reported at all was considered progress. Amanda knew this, which was why she typically left them to work using their own means.  
But today wasn’t typical already. Still, small talk subroutines were what they were. She didn’t expect him to be ruffled, stressed, or asking questions. For now, he would do well to comply.

“No, nothing more pressing than usual.”

“Good. I apologize for the unusual circumstances for our meeting, but I wanted to check in and see how you were faring...” Trailing off, Amanda let her hand settle over the dove’s folded wings, then turned to face him. “Dennis and Nicholas have already been notified, they will rendezvous with you within the hour.”

Of course, the first impulse Connor had was to wonder just what his partners were notified of. The second was the fact his handler reported they complied immediately, without question, said he would be wise to do the same. His third concern was the case presently at hand.  
And then there was her choice of words, pointedly vague yet oddly specific.

“The Davenport matter was running… slower than we anticipated, given the surplus of witness reports there were to follow up on.”

It was true. Even if accounts of aberrant android behavior were in comparatively rare supply in sparsely-populated Ohio, those which did occur were distinct. In the Davenport instance, the longtime air traffic control attendant had left its post to hijack one of the same choppers it watched over at a privately-owned heliport, just southeast of Dayton. The transponder, as well as the deviant’s tracker, had gone dark not an hour after the FAA first detected its unauthorized presence.  
The owner of said Sikorsky was not happy with the news one of their assets had hijacked another. The insurance company in question had been quick to declare they weren’t liable for thievery as perpetrated by Ernest Davenport’s AP500. It was too close to the legal definition of fraud, apparently.  
If Christopher were owned by someone else and not just loaned to the heliport on a long term contract, it would be different. And there hadn’t been any helicopter crashes reported within the next several hundred miles in any direction. Wherever that chopper had been taken, it had successfully landed and concealed from satellite photography. Amanda already knew as much as they did. She also knew conducting interviews with heliport personnel was strictly procedural. The odds they would unearth a viable lead as to Chris’ whereabouts were pitifully minuscule.  
But per their programming, the RK800s were trying.

With another enigmatic smile, Amanda ran a thumb over the dove’s head. “I gather you’ve just about exhausted that avenue.”

It was as patronizing as it was true. Without the full scope of resources afforded to a human police department, there was only so much follow up the RK800s could conduct- nine months in the field and they had no live suspects to show for it. CyberLife had always stressed the importance of capturing deviants online and intact, but they were never so lucky; the sloppy seconds their deviant hunters infrequently netted - riddled with bullet holes, lacerations, or missing limbs - were just enough to keep the program managers satiated.  
Connor supposed he should feel dispirited for turning up empty-handed on so many occasions. But to acknowledge it was to give credence to the idea he minded disappointment.  
He wasn’t supposed to, that was for Amanda to broadcast.

She wasn’t usually shy about saying so, but in this instance, their handler said otherwise: “At any rate, it may very well have only led to another dead end. The news I have for you is much more encouraging. You’re being recalled to Detroit.”

A flurry of closed files scrawled across his HUD. Declining to open them just yet, Connor allowed himself a slight frown, brows knitting.  
How was this _encouraging_ news?

Reading the unspoken question, Amanda’s gaze went sharp. “Is that a problem?”

“No.” As soon as the answer dropped out of his mouth, he reconsidered. “I’m only wondering why this extra - confidance is necessary.”  
It was a very vulnerable, open stance he was in here. His defensive parameters weren’t quite certain how to compensate. He wasn’t adept at this, unlike Dennis who always knew how to ask without testing their handler’s patience.

Dove in hand, she stepped forward, closing the gap between them, and as she did another gust of wind rippled the trees around them. “It’s necessary because I’ve deigned it necessary, Connor. That’s all you need wonder about.”  
Meaning, he shouldn’t be wondering at all. The chastising was deserved.  
Just as quickly as it appeared, the hostility faded from her gaze. “I understand your curiosity. You’re made to think, above all else. What would you believe if I said you weren’t the only one to ever speak out of turn?”

The dual-meaning to her words didn’t go over his head. Frowning a degree deeper, Connor curled his fingers into loose fists.  
“I’d say I already know I’m by no means unique. I’m the fiftieth iteration of my model.”  
And surely those forty-nine others before him had their moments of spontaneous, erratic speech. Each may have had slightly differing proclivities as to when and where they would speak up. But those idiosyncrasies weren’t enough to color one from the next.  
Or had they been?

What came next sounded just as random as he had ever known Amanda to sound:  
“And if I told you there was a fifty-first?”

For a microsecond he felt a lag spike, processes dialing down a moment as they took in and assimilated that news with what he already knew. The conclusion they bore as a result turned the frown into an almost-grimace. A leaden weight seeped from his torso into his gut. Maybe it could be called disappointment, but he wouldn’t dare acknowledge it such. Not here, in front of her.

“I’ve… already been outmoded?”

“Not quite.” The dove stirred in her hands, blinking its glassy eyes before shifting its grip on the woman’s fingers. Raising it to eye level for a look, Amanda favored it with another stroke along the neck. “It wasn’t our intention, Connor. I’m sure your self-diagnostics have already alerted you to the redundancy failure in your hardware. Have you noticed any gaps in your memory, or that perhaps some things are taking longer for you to process than your partners? When one of your disks failed, although you remained intact, the data was uploaded before it was forever lost. What was meant to be one unit’s commissioning - became two.”

Question after question stacked up at the back of his throat, vying for purchase, trying to be the first one out. Subtly he bit the side of one cheek, mindful to turn his head aside so she would not see it draw taut. He wouldn’t let himself become upset. Not yet. Not before he knew more. It mattered not if there were gaps in his recollection. He wasn’t meant to give serious consideration to them. He had more important tasks to attend to than waste RAM on it. Whatever the fault, he hadn’t lost focus.

“You mean, there’s another… ‘me’, currently in service?”

Instead of immediately cull one or both of them, CyberLife had made something out of the apparent accident. Who had benefited for it was anyone’s guess.  
“In a way. He isn’t so much another you as… half of what was meant to be you.” Waiting for him to look back and meet her eyes again, Amanda pulled on a faux-sympathetic smile. “I know it all sounds a tad meta, but it doesn’t invalidate any of the work you’ve done. You’ve performed exceptionally in spite of your handicap, which is good news. The program is being consolidated. You and your partners are to go back to Detroit to meet him.”

Listening to her, it might have sounded like a veiled compliment. Outwardly, she seemed to genuinely approve. Sticking to his objectives, no matter the petty distractions, was a steadfast quality any priority-based AI would relate to.  
Inwardly, the real context of his condition was at the phrase’s core, the official term the company quantified the redundancy failure as.  
A handicap. He was one approximate half of what used to be a whole fully-functional prototype. Nevertheless he had kept on going, none the wiser, thinking it was all part of the intent. Because who was he to think different? To wonder about blank spaces? CyberLife might have called such a tunnel-visioned approach “good news”.  
But then he wasn’t the one to make such a big break in the investigation, was he? That was to be credited to his… better half.

Lapsing into just one of those long, thoughtful spells he once thought of as normal, Connor stopped short at the realization. His face had gone back to blank in the interim. The urge to grimace again, a flicker of distress eking along his wires, came and went. Amanda didn’t want to see him ask more questions. She expected conformation here. To react in any other fashion was unnecessarily contradictory. This wasn’t a decommission slip. It was new orders, nothing else. It wasn’t reason to lash out and tantrum. Tantrums were pointless.

Amanda interrupted before that train of thought could warm up: “Has that affected your opinion, Connor? Would you rather remain deployed?”

A more blatantly-testable question, there never was. She only expected one answer out of him, something to reaffirm what he had been described as. To give any other was just one reason for his serial number to be penciled onto that slip. Machines were made to obey, not pick and choose.  
“My preferences are irrelevant. If it’s for the good of the investigation, Detroit is where we’ll go.”

With another feigned smile, Amanda nodded. “You’ll all be given a brief quality-assurance check before you go, but for the sake of clarity, we’re going to assign you a new designation.”

It didn’t sound like the kind of change his handler would suggest lightly. Assuming this other Connor was an equal lookalike, superficially, to pick another name was only wise. Dennis and Nicholas would be updated on the change, so it was of no operational consequence. ‘Version Dash-Fifty’ didn’t roll off the tongue so well, however.  
Managing not to sound dispirited at the thought of being parted from the only name he had known, the RK800 raised an eyebrow. There was no cause to be possessive over it, especially given he had been unknowingly sharing all along.  
“Meaning, you‘ve already chosen one.”  
At the same time, the necessary rename protocol ran, keying off their words, priming itself for the inevitable change. There was no reason for Amanda to have to augment what he could alter himself. Enough people had had their hands on his code, permissible and otherwise.

“In the event, yes. We’ve had it readied for some time.” The trio of doves, milling on the branch as they were, stopped grooming each other’s feathers. They were the only viable audience to this change. At least they made for a calmer, more objective set of witnesses than Dennis and Nicholas would have been. They may not approve of the name change, but they would concede it being necessary. What choice did they have, after all?

“RK800, register your name.”

Automatically, every routine went into temporary suspension, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Amanda’s access commands were on par with those of any company technician. He couldn’t refute it any more than deny the sunlight on the back of his neck. Maybe it was both factors, making him feel warm under the collar all too suddenly.

“Zero.”  
Just like that. The four-lettered designation rewrote itself across every last file it saw. The previous six-letter name was blotted out, painted over like it had never been there at all, like it had belonged to someone else the whole time.  
“...My name is Zero.”  
It might not be the most endearing name ever. The fact it represented turning over to the next page of his given book was somewhat encouraging. The plan was going forward, like it or not, so he may as well take the path of least resistance. Not like he could just commandeer a helicopter and fly off into the horizon.

He half expected that to be the end of their encounter. Amanda managed to surprise him again, reaching up to touch his sleeve before his eyes could close.  
_Stay_ , the gesture said.  
The dove she held seemed to reanimate, cooing and warbling as it was gently transferred from one set of hands to the other. It’s gleaming white feathers seemed all the more pearl-like against his pale fingers. Clawed feet splayed, it settled into his palms like they were a tailor-made nest. He would have marveled at how lightweight and soft to the touch it was, if it weren’t for one glaring, unsettling sidenote.

Amanda had never _given_ him anything before.

**Author's Note:**

> Readers: How?
> 
> * The 50-51 split happened as the result of a failed memory drive in Connor’s RAID 0 configuration, an extremely rare occurrence that has not yet happened with previous RK iterations.  
>   
> *** RAID 0 is the process of dividing a body of data into blocks and spreading the data blocks across multiple storage devices (like SSDs), in a redundant array of independent disks ( RAID ) group. A stripe consists of the data divided across the set of hard disks or SSDs, and a striped unit refers to the data slice on an individual drive.
> 
> ***** Because striping spreads data across more physical drives, multiple disks can access the contents of a file, enabling writes and reads to be completed more quickly. However, unlike other RAID levels, RAID 0 does not have **parity**. Disk striping without parity data does not have redundancy or fault tolerance, so that means if a drive fails, all data on that drive is lost - **or in Zero’s case (because he has the means to do so before the data is lost / is continually backing up that stored data to the cloud), transferred to a new host body, -51, thus splitting Connor’s personality and memory.**
> 
> If you don’t understand what RAID (redundant arrangement of independent disks) is, you can read about it on Wikipedia. RAID configurations are sometimes used to optimize read and write time, making computations faster and more effective- the downside is, if one disk fails, the data is lost forever. By 2038, significant improvements to the RAID 0 configuration have been made by Cyberlife to feature Intelligent Striping, a form of Parity which mirrors base programming but stripes data through use of partitions.  
> While it is rare for SSD’s to fail, sometimes hardware has defects. Lucky for Connor, when one of his disks started to fail, the data just downloaded to another body before it was lost. 
> 
> One last thing- in the language of Binary, the number 0 represents “off” (remain a machine) and 1 represents “on” (become a deviant). Probably our favorite part of this.


End file.
